There are days when you just need something to cheer you up, especially during a holiday season darkened by ineffable tragedy. If the drollery of Mark Morris' "The Hard Nut" - which returned to Cal Performances this weekend with shows that run through Dec. 23 - is insouciant entertainment that surely doesn't profess to change the world, it's also a gleeful romp with the power to make you laugh in moments when laughter is hard to come by.

In an essay titled "Why Comedy is Truer to Life Than Tragedy" this year, Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout observed, "In most human lives, absurdity and sorrow are woven together too tightly to be teased apart." I couldn't help but think of those words and consider the vital necessity for the sort of tension-relieving exhale that "The Hard Nut" provides as the lights went down at Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall on Friday night. We need comedy, if only to help us cope with the cosmic absurdity that is human frailty.

The Mark Morris Dance Group has been performing this sly re-envisioning of "The Nutcracker" since 1991. Not only is it a crackerjack production - with wonderful pop art sets by Adrianne Lobel (inspired by the work of illustrator Charles Burns) and witty costumes by the late Martin Pakledinaz - like many "Nutcrackers" across America, this has become something of a family affair. There's Morris onstage himself, this time as Dr. Stahlbaum, with MMDG veteran John Heginbotham as his blithesome Mrs. Stahlbaum, the ever-vivacious Lauren Grant as their daughter Marie and an espiègle June Omura as her brother Fritz. Billy Smith's handsome Drosselmeier deftly navigated a fine line between eccentric and sinister. But perhaps no one onstage is having more fun than Kraig Patterson, who returned to the company to reprise his role as the sassy Housekeeper.

Like any piece of tradition, though, "The Hard Nut" stays lively when the performers breathe new life into roles they've honed to a fine point over the years. And even in a comic masterwork there's still room for a little contemporizing here and there, as evidenced when Michelle Yard and her partner injected a little Gangnam style into the raucous electric slide during the party scene.

As always, a favorite moment is the ingenious choreography for the snow scene. In a ballet set up with broad comic strokes, one might expect parody, but instead, Morris gives us one of the most wholly satisfying blizzards in the history of "Nutcrackers," mining the rich Tchaikovsky score - rendered with graciousness here by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra under George Cleve with the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir - for moments of rushing exhilaration and breathless cascades.

What holds "The Hard Nut" together though is Grant's childlike sense of wonderment. In her final duet with her Nutcracker, Aaron Loux, Grant's wide eyes gave a beautiful innocence to their every kiss.

When the last credits roll on that whimsical '70s-style TV console, one feels not just the satisfaction of seeing a brilliant comedy wind to its happy conclusion, but also the relief in knowing that "The Hard Nut" can put some of the cheer back into the holidays.